Death of Print Journalism Watch

Veteran sportswriter John Walters has recently taken up a gig guest-blogging at Notre Dame football über-blog The Blue Gray Sky. His latest post discusses the democratizing effects of the rise of online sports journalism, and along the way serves up some utterly infuriating anecdotes – including one in which an editor at Sports Illustrated changed “grunge” to “groove” in an article’s mention of an athlete’s musical preferences, and when pressed on the decision refused to acknowledge that such a thing as grunge music existed – from his many years of working in print. Here’s how Walters concludes his piece:

This much I do know. Fifteen years later, the “Inside College Football” section of SI is well-written, meticulously edited, fact-checked and copy-edited. But the earliest you’ll ever read it is five days after Saturday’s games. In terms of 21st century college football coverage, it may as well be written on papyrus.